Well take it what you will but that is what grunge is. Facts are facts. It definitely has the metal edge mixed with the punk and alternative influence. It is what it is.
Is Nirvana an overrated band? (and other ones)
- Thread starter TheYoungMan
- Start date
Well take it what you will but that is what grunge is. Facts are facts. It definitely has the metal edge mixed with the punk and alternative influence. It is what it is.
TheSound
An Englishman in New York
Quite right there. Grunge is not even a genre, not in the true sense of the word, since musical genres by their nature spread worldwide, and tend to run and run and run, often for decades, or even in some cases centuries!!... but even if it ever was, then it is now dead. It's just an umbrella term which some guy dreamed up once and was used to describe bands from one particular tiny localised scene from a small area of the Pacific NW, and who all became popular in that particular period of time. The very term "grunge" is a nebulous one at best, because there is no actual 'grunge' sound - Pearl Jam sounds nothing like Soundgarden, who sounds nothing like Nirvana, who sounds nothing like Alice in Chains. And people who label an innovative and diverse and uncompromising band like PJ - who continually re-invent themselves musically - as simply 'grunge' do so simply because they can't appreciate the complex, reflective, experimental, and actually quite 'progressive' nature of much of their music, especially from the 3rd 'Vitalogy' album onwards, and they obviously can't hear beyond the first couple of albums, which were both very heavily over-produced pseudo-metal affairs, and which the band subsequently actually hated, and are a million miles away from the music they've been making since about 1994. Pearl Jam has never been a band to be boxed into formulaic songwriting, or pinned down with any simple-minded categorizations, or at least not by anyone who wants to be taken seriously. And you will never find any quote in any interview with Eddie Vedder where he ever says "yes, we are/were a grunge band".
Not sure how Kiss got in on this topic. I don't understand the whole Kiss Industry, or why it even has to exist, but I wouldn't call a band with their success as 'over-rated', Kiss I admit are a lot of fun and - unlike Nirvana, who came and went inside 3 or 4 years, Kiss with their 40+ years of touring and recording have earned the right to be respected if only for their hard work and longevity.
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Part of the Nirvana "legend' status is Kurt Cobain's untimely death and that event's association with the 27 club (along with Jim Morrison, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones). I genuinely do think they were overrated. Be honest, if not for Smells Like Teen Spirit, how many truly classic Nirvana tunes are there, which will go down in history as rock classics? Can you rattle off, say, five tunes without thinking that will clearly become staples, in the same way as you can with The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin or Bowie?
I don't know where Kiss came into it, but it's an odd comparison. Kiss is a Saturday night party band and in that sense, I think they're often underrated or dismissed as a gimmick outfit. Many great party songs though and Alive I and Alive II are great live LPs. No point in even drawing comparison's to a band like Nirvana though.
Nirvana = Overrated
U2 = Overrated
Led Zeppelin = Overrated
The Beatles = Overrated
Elvis = Overrated
Some things never change, I like all the artists I posted except Nirvana whom I just don't think were that great of a band. A generation of young folk have decided they were the Beatles of their time so nothing I say will change their minds.
AIC, Soundgarden are two bands I like a lot more than Cobain & Company.
U2 = Overrated
Led Zeppelin = Overrated
The Beatles = Overrated
Elvis = Overrated
Some things never change, I like all the artists I posted except Nirvana whom I just don't think were that great of a band. A generation of young folk have decided they were the Beatles of their time so nothing I say will change their minds.
AIC, Soundgarden are two bands I like a lot more than Cobain & Company.
I also much prefer both Alice in Chains and Soundgarden to Nirvana (including the new/ revitalised versions of both of the former bands) . I have an intense dislike for opinions on artists based on anything non-musical and whilst Cobain's death was beyond tragic at that age, it has distorted the public's perceived value of his musical legacy.
There is truth in that, the sense of loss to his legion of fans promoted him to musical deity status. I reserve that for a select handful of artists who have stood the test of time.
I would still invite the people who think that Nirvana were The Beatles of their generation to choose 5 songs that will become classics and instantly recognisable for generations to come in the true sense of the word. Your measure is as follows: The Beatles (Hard Days Night, Eleanor Rigby, Love Me Do, Hey Jude, Help); The Rolling Stones (Jumping Jack Flash, Satisfaction, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, You Can't Always Get What You want). Led Zeppelin (Stairway To Heaven, Kashmir, Whole Lotta Love, Rock and Roll, Communication Breakdown). Go......
It's helpful to remember that all through the 80s and into the 90s they were calling transvestite cock rock heavy metal and whiny college rock progressive. So when yet another stupid term came along I wasn't surprised.
At least it wasn't a gross misuse of an already (seemingly) well understood term like calling Bon Jovi or Quiet Riot metal or U2 progressive was.
I think the op used Kiss as an example because they are at about the same level technically as Nirvana and he was wondering why such borderline amateur talent could be considered so great by so many people.
But both had another thing in common besides their limited musical vocabulary. They both had a fire and pulse that hit you where you live if you were a young man dealing with life.
I remember when I first heard Kiss. It had the same effect as a Friday night horror movie. Not particularly well executed like the Sabbath I was already very much into but possessing the same eerie otherworldly yet extremely worldly quality. On top of it Kiss was overtly sexual lyrically. You could hear it seething out of so many lyrics in their older songs and that was just swell for a young man trying to find his feet in the world.
Sorry. Went down the rabbit hole a little too far with this one.
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